might probably seduce them to commit the same offences
again. It directs also, that this banishment shall be for such a length
of time as may be suitable to the guilt of the crime, and render it
impracticable for them on their return to meet with their old gangs and
acquaintance, making by this means a happy mixture both of justice and
clemency, dealing mildly with them for the offence already committed and
endeavouring to put it ever out of their own power by fresh offences, to
draw a heavier judgment upon themselves.

But to return to this Whalebone. The kind usage of his master, the
easiness of the life which he lived, and the certainty of death if he
attempted to return home, could not all of them prevail upon him to lay
aside the thoughts of coming back again to London, and there giving
himself up to those sensual delights which he had formerly enjoyed.
Opportunities are seldom wanting where men incline to make use of diem;
especially to one who had been bred as he was to the sea. So that in a
year and a half after ms being settled there, he took such ways of
recommending himself to a certain captain as induced him to bring him
home, and set him safe on shore near Harwich. He travelled on foot up to
London, and was in town but a very few days before being accidentally
taken notice of by a person who knew him, he caused him to be
apprehended, and at the next sessions at the Old Bailey, he was
convicted of such illegal return, and ordered for execution.

At first he pretended that he thought it no crime for a man to return to
his own country, and therefore did not think himself bound to repent of
that. Whatever arguments the Ordinary made use of to persuade him to
sense of his guilt I know not. But because this is an error into which
such people are very apt to fall; and as there want not some of the
vulgar who take it for a great hardship, also making it one of those
topics upon which they take occasion to harangue against the severity of
a Law that they do not understand, I think it will not, therefore, be
improper to explain it.

Transportation is a punishment whereby the British law commutes for
offences which would otherways be capital, and therefore a contract is
plainly presumed between every felon transported and the Court by whose
authority he is ordered for transportation, that the said felon shall
remain for such term of years as the Law directs, without returning into
any of the King's European dominion